Adoration and Sacrifice
by Ryaninthesky
Summary: In 1913, Regina attends the premiere of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring.' She encounters Bohemian Emma, and during the performance they share a profound - if unexpected - experience.


_A/N: _possible trigger warning for dub-con. Listen to the Rite of Spring while reading for best results. And no, there are no dinosaurs.

* * *

_May 29, 1913_

In spring, the sun does not seem willing to shrink behind the horizon as it does at times during the rest of the year. It fights, dying bravely with an illumination that sets the world on fire. Today, it finds its match in the figure of a dark-haired woman gracefully exiting a motorcar, and the sun in her glory bows to her mistress. The last rays of the day pay obeisance to the woman's jeweled throat and caress her skin with gentle familiarity. Here, at the steps of the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, she moves haloed through the crowd. The throng of ballet patrons, society's finest sheep, parts naturally in her wake, and it is not until she has disappeared through the entrance of the Theatre that people begin to speak again in hushed tones. Finally the cacophonous riot of human voices is restored to its normal level, and the woman is forgotten for the moment.

The press of the crowd inside is asphyxiating, and does not relent even for beautiful women. "Dirty rabble." Leopold rasps, gesturing generally to a group of Bohemians who are telling lecherous jokes and laughing rather too loudly, as if sensing the need to establish their presence in this temple to classical taste. "I remember just last week I was talking to George about how the government should be cleansing the whole Montparnasse; I doubt anything short of fire could remove that stench."

Regina nods disinterestedly, her eyes caught by the challenging verdant gaze of one of the collective. A young woman, blonde, clad in a fisherman's jersey and men's trousers, is leaning against a pillar with an air of quiet confidence and does not join in the revelry of her companions. A beat passes, then another and another; hard and regular like a waltz. One-two-three. The house lights begin to flicker and the mass of humanity flows to the main hall, a river that sweeps Regina and her husband along in its path but somehow cannot dislodge the gypsy from her appointed post. Leopold roughly grabs at her elbow, hand closing on her back to prevent them from being separated, and doggedly leads her to their box. She turns her head to the current, nearly thrashing against it, but cannot not find the other woman, nor quite define in herself the need to.

Theirs was not the best box in the theatre – despite his bluster, Leopold could not lay claim to the level of wealth and society required to secure one of those – but it was cool after the closeness of the crowd and afforded an excellent view not only of the stage but the audience as well. The lights sank low. The curtain rose.

_Les Sylphides_ she has seen before, and cannot be moved by the poet in his flowing black shirt. Her glasses rove instead over the rows of seats, searching for a shock of golden hair amongst the shadows. She was not in the orchestral level, nor in the mezzanine, or the balcony that Regina could see. Of course, there is no way of knowing whether the woman is above her box, at least without making a fool of herself.

Leopold leaves during the applause. It doesn't matter.

A plaintive wail drifts over the theatre, arresting her attention. Unlike any sound she has ever heard, it yet is familiar. A woman takes the stage, of such an advanced age that she seems not to belong to any century definitively, and begins to beat at the ground with bundles of sticks, chanting. Young girls form wild groupings and leap into the air, their movements somehow both innocent and obscene. It seems as if the entire hall has caught its breath. This is not music; this is an impressionist painting alive, emotion given form and function. The orchestra seems not to play the score as to be played by it.

What madman could conceive of this, could hold this in his mind long enough to put pen to paper before it simply split out of him?

A hand covers her shoulder, and she turns to scream, but the air rushes inside her instead. The blonde woman stands behind her, hair as pale as corn in the misty darkness. It seems to cover her like ribbons, and she tightens her hold on Regina, drawing her deeper into the box as the music floods louder, faster; basic beats echoed by her heart and the relentless crescendo of childish games onstage.

A shout rings out over the noise, and Regina is so startled that it doesn't come from her own throat that she leans out over the railing, craning to see what is happening. A man has thrown something at the orchestra, apparently, and one of the Bohemians has forcibly tried to stop him. The dancers do not hesitate in their steps; the violence breaking out seems to make the tableaux more natural, not less. They spin and spin on, while old men cry out at the performance, protesting the vital leaps because they miss the tight clothes and knowing bulges of the classical performers.

She is pulled back; the music drifts lower.

Sure hands map her body, valleys clefting mountains to match the set design before them.

"I found you."

"Who are you?"It is the polite question, the important question, but Regina immediately wishes she could take it back. It is wrong, with strong hands bunching velvet at her waist, to ask such a thing. She doesn't want to know; it would ruin everything.

"Tell me your name." She asks instead, hurriedly, circles of men and women writhing, breaking apart and coming together in their games. The blonde nods, shifting her lips across Regina's skin to bring them a breath away from its surface, panting.

"Emma."

"Emma." Regina gasps. _Emma_, nothing less than the universal, in whom strength is whole. _Emma;_ the name beats inside of her to the refrain of the madly layered orchestral chords, simple and dissonant and beautiful. In a time before Adam, Lamia, the snake-woman, stealer of children, offers Eve the apple. Regina bites hard into Emma's shoulder, the coppery tang of blood driving her higher; she wants more, wants to drink the life from her lover's body, wants to take her inside, so deep and lost that the woman will never leave. No virgin who entered the Cretan labyrinth ever returned such.

Emma's fingers ghost over her skin in time with trills, and it is somehow more profound than the ostinato rhythms in its delicacy. But now is not the time for gentle lovers, and as a ring forms onstage around a lone girl Regina stakes her nails into Emma's strong shoulders and feels a sympathetic flow of wetness pool between her thighs. Regina's pleasure at Emma's pleasure at Emma's pain.

Transcendent, it does not grow with absence, because the absence of this love is death. Love that holds and keeps.

Emma's fingers sink. Regina sighs.

The theatre box is filled with the her scent, cloyingly sweet like rotting fruit in the sun. It is the smell of heat, of death. Wild pagan cadences thrum through her to the time of Emma's thrusts and she is swept away in a torrent of pleasure. Hands, lips, tongue seem everywhere at once. The staccato brass stabs through string and wood, stabs in the rising tempo, swells with the tide of history and pierces her breast. In an opium-dream of emotion, she is buoyed inexorably to a finish that she cannot control any more than she can the time of her own demise. It is decided for her, beautifully, by Emma's touch.

Her pleasure at Emma's pleasure.

Commanded so completely, she is free.

The chosen sacrifice whirls onstage, skirts flashing in orgiastic frenzy. She stumbles; she almost falls; she rights herself, turning her face to the heavens in beatific supplication.

Cymbals crash, and Regina's cunt tightens around Emma's hand, spasming against tempo.

The dancer collapses. She comes.

When Regina regains her senses, Emma is gone, and the box is cold and barren.


End file.
